Weeks 2 & 3: Working on a core change

I’ve had a question on my mind for a little while. What if killing each other in a video game loses fun and replayability over time? In THE MISSION, a battle ends when a player has 10 kills to their name. Is this enough over the course of several play-throughs?

I’ve had a few trains of thought on trying to answer this question:

“Yes, it’s the core of the game, and that’s enough.” As I’m aiming to release the game in Q2, time is getting shorter and shorter. Modifying the core of the game is risky, especially when the existing core has shown to be quite fun enough that players keep joining in battles.

“No, it won’t be enough. Fix it or it’ll be a game with limited replayability.” Augh!

“Maybe. Try to find out by playtesting.”

So I’ve decided to act on this last one. I’m setting up a duplicate of the first Terrarium level where cubes spawn periodically. The victory condition is therefore to collect 10 cubes. Killing becomes a way of preventing other players from reaching the cube.

I’m trying to implement it as lightly as possible, so that if it’s totally not fun, I won’t have spent too much time on it. It’s interesting because I have to keep reminding myself of this! It’s back to prototyping, with making a sort of minimum viable product to test the idea out. If it sticks, then develop further on it. Looking forward to playtesting!